From: Andy McDonald Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 00:33:13 -0400 Subject: zone.tab corrections
Ukrainian time zones Europe/Kiev, Europe/Uzhgorod and Europe/Zaporozhye: These might better be named Europe/Kyiv, Europe/Uzhhorod and Europe/Zaporizhia, being transliterations of the Ukrainian - rather than Russian - place-names. Similarly, the comment for Europe/Zaporozhye should perhaps be 'Zaporizhia, E Luhansk', rather than 'Zaporozh'ye, E Lugansk'.
Yeah, but where does it end? In the former USSR a lot of local languages are spoken, only one of which is Ukrainian. To be consistent, one has to find out what other local languages are spoken in the other Russian timezones. And invent a transliteration scheme for those languages that don't have one yet. Better idea: the current practice, namely using the Russian names. In most former Russian republics people have learned the Russian language and still understand it. Hence: a transliteration from Russian names seems to be more practical. My proposition: don't change no nothing.....
I have no strong personal feelings about this issue. However, looking at the 2007f 'backward' file, precedents include Link Asia/Ashgabat Asia/Ashkhabad Link Asia/Ulaanbaatar Asia/Ulan_Bator In both cases the zone name change was due to a change in transliteration from Russian to the national language. 'Russian timezones' are time zones under the administration of Russia (Asia/Yekaterinburg, Europe/Moscow, etc), not the former USSR. These zones are named based on transliteration from Russian, or on the standard English name for the city, as one would expect. Other nations of the former USSR tend to be ethnically and linguistically distinct from Russia (though Russian is often one of the two official languages); where there is only one official (non-Russian) language one would expect the name of the time zone to reflect this. It's not hard to find out what other local languages are spoken: Ukraine's official language is Ukrainian, Moldova's is Moldovan, etc. In the case that Russian is one of the official languages, I would agree that no change is required. However this is distinct from the status of Russian as being widely understood; certainly many people in the former USSR understand Russian, but I would imagine that the average Ukrainian, Moldovan, Tajik or Georgian would take issue with a transliteration from Russian.